A young family walk gloomily past property Sold signs in a street at Grays, Essex England. Passing the prominent signs that bear the name of Quirk Deakin, a local estate agent in the industrial towns of south Essex and the Thames Gateway, is the location for dramatic increases of new housing developments. Both the parents and their daughter look depressed in this time of economic recession, when families are having their homes repossessed after defaulting on mortgage repayments. It is a bright summer day in Grays, east of the capital, just outside of the M25 orbital motorway and on the Thames river.